Free Bets and Welcome Bonuses – Everything You Need to Know

As keen online gamblers, there’s nothing more exciting than the potential of winning some serious money when you enter an online casino and start placing bets and taking part in some of the impressive games on offer. But what’s even better than winning bets and making money after spending your own money in said casinos? That would be winning money off of free bets or welcome bonuses offered to you by the casinos.

That’s what we’re going to talk to you about today. You see, in an attempt to entice people into the casinos in order for them to spend their money and gamble, many online casinos offer welcome bonuses and free bets to new customers and account holders. But surely this “free money” as it were, is too good to be true? Well, while there are a few catches hidden in the small print, they are largely just as beneficial as they sound. Here’s a look at everything you need to know about welcome bonuses and free bets.

What are free bets and welcome bonuses?

As the online gambling industry makes so much money and is so fiercely competitive, online casinos and bookmakers need to help make their site stand out against the competition. They want you to choose their site over that of their competitor’s, so they offer welcome bonuses and/or free bets and other similar incentives to try to entice people into signing up, creating an account, and making a deposit with them.

Different types of bonus

There are a number of different incentives which the site-owners offer to people to get them to sign up. Some common examples of popular bonus incentives include:

Stake matching

As mentioned, there is a slight catch when it comes to free bets and welcome bonuses. You see, you can’t just sign up, create an account, and then sit back and enjoy your free bet without spending any money, otherwise you’d simply jump from site to site, creating accounts, collecting free bets, creating new email addresses, and building up your free bets over and over. To claim your free bet you have to deposit money into your account and then place a bet. Stake matching is one of the most common types of free bet going, and it is basically where the site offers you a free bet to the same value as you have just gambled. So, if you gamble £20, you will receive a further £20 as a free bet, so your total stake will be for £20.

Free bets

Free bets are just as they sound. They typically work by having you bet a certain amount and receiving a free bet with a pre-determined value. Each website is different, but just to give you an example, it could look something like: ‘Bet 40 Euros and get 10 Euros free’.

Deposit bonuses

Deposit bonuses used to be the most common type of welcome bonus going, but they are becoming less so nowadays. Here, the basic idea is that you deposit X amount and will receive a percentage of your deposit as a welcome bonus. So, for example, it might state that you will receive a free bet worth 10 Euros when you deposit 20 into your account. This additional 10 Euros cannot then be withdrawn, it must be used as a bet. If that bet comes in however, whatever you win, you can indeed withdraw if you feel inclined to do so. Happy days.